Could you live without lattes and organic pesto? I can't... and it's ruining me!

We won’t get a holiday this summer, so the cheap couple of days my family spent at Center Parcs in freezing January will have to suffice.

My ten-year-old car desperately needs servicing, but will have to make do with a new tyre for the foreseeable future.

My young family is starting to outgrow our two-bedroom flat, but dreams of climbing the property ladder have been put on hold indefinitely. Still, it’s not all bad news. Come round to our place and you’ll find organic avocados, shelves groaning under the weight of new novels, and nice bottles of fizz in the fridge.

Coffee culture: Hugh won't risk his family's future by stretching to an
extra bedroom and a costly mortgage, but he'lll spend a fortune on
lattes

My name is Hugh and, like an awful lot of middle-class people I know,
I am a micro-splurger. After years of boom, I’m part of a generation
conditioned to think that steady work doesn’t just buy food, clothes and
a roof, it grants you access to the trappings of middle-class life.

In
a nutshell, I won’t buy a holiday on credit and I won’t risk my
family’s future by stretching to an extra bedroom and a costly mortgage,
but I will spend a shocking amount on take-away lattes and cashmere
socks.

It’s not that I’m a totally irresponsible spender. I moved
from a big city to a small town to cut down on living costs, and I’m
not driving a top-of-the-range 4x4 while struggling to pay the rent. On
the big things, I’ve turned into quite the miser. Yet I’m addicted to
the small accoutrements of middle-class life.

I live 100 yards from the office where I work, but I spend a small fortune on coffee-shop ciabattas. And if the middle classes use their children as projections of themselves, my kids, invariably wearing the latest from JoJo Maman Bebe and clutching new — often wooden — toys, project the illusion of a man with lots of disposable income.

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It has taken a while for any of this to disturb my peace of mind, because micro-splurging is so easily excused. One more latte won’t break the bank (even if one or two every day makes for an expensive habit). My son’s new jacket really was a necessity (even if it didn’t have to come from Gap). I buy organic because I tell myself it’s more nutritious (even if I’m not really convinced).

For micro-splurgers, the parts are never significant — it’s their sum that causes problems. And for what? Nearly everything I buy in this desperate effort to keep up appearances could be replaced by a cheaper alternative. Hell, I could get some of it for nothing.

Pricey buy: Hugh buys organic because he tells himself it's more nutritious (even if he's not really convinced)

For example, every novel and DVD I’ve bought in the last year could have been borrowed from the local library, but the true extent of my snobbish obsession with acquiring books became clear the other week when I put down the one I was reading (borrowed from a friend) and told my wife I was going to buy a copy.

‘It’s just one of those you have to own,’ I said — the fact that I’d recently transferred funds from our rapidly diminishing savings into my current account to cover the month’s expenses didn’t even register. So that’s £10-12 blown on a book I will never open, just to look clever to friends who come round.

But despite its psychological benefits, this micro-splurging is not a harmless addiction. My debts aren’t out of control, but nor are they insignificant. The other week I finally got round to transferring my credit card balance to a new provider to cut the interest. The few pounds I save will doubtless be ploughed back into organic pesto.

'Despite the fact I have a cash-sucking baby imminent I am still buying
posh food items, books, and twinkly globe lights from overpriced
Buddhist shops'

Hugh's writer friend Hazel

I had some good years in the boom and built up some healthy savings, a source of great comfort when first one and then a second child arrived. But the buffer between my family and the workhouse is now wafer thin. If work ran out tomorrow, savings would keep us afloat for a month at most.

I am far from alone in my desperate longing to cling to the veneer of middle-class existence. Friends of ours have three children, £20,000 on credit cards, and a weekly delivery from Waitrose (they have a Morrisons just down the road).

Hazel, a writer friend based in West Yorkshire, is expecting her first child in June, with all the expense that implies (one recent report now puts the sum it costs to raise a child to 21 at a whopping £210,000), but swapping organic for economy is out of the question.

‘Yes, despite the fact I have a cash-sucking baby imminent I am still buying posh food items, books, and twinkly globe lights from overpriced Buddhist shops,’ she admits. ‘I’ve been stomping around saying, “we don’t need to buy furniture for the baby’s room new, we can get it from Freecycle,” but I won’t scrimp on the little luxuries.’

Indeed, what is life without twinkly globe lights? And why can’t I get it into my head that I would be less stressed about money if I didn’t spend so much of it on things that should be the first to go in these straitened times?

Actually, I know the answer. There’s something about clinging on to the minor trappings of a previous existence that makes up for greater privations in other areas. Yes, it’s keeping up with the Joneses recession-style, but to me the instinct is more akin to that of some dust-encrusted English missionary in 19th century Africa, sipping tea from a china cup in the middle of the desert.

As the economic sandstorm swirls around us, we cling to what we’ve come to regard as the vestiges of civilisation — in our case M&S baby clothes, balsamic vinegar and wordy novels.